The White Star liner "Atlantic" lay at her pier with steam up and
gangway down, ready for her trip to Southampton. The hour of departure
was near, and there was a good deal of mixed activity going on. Sailors
fiddled about with ropes. Junior officers flitted to and fro.
White-jacketed stewards wrestled with trunks. Probably the captain,
though not visible, was also employed on some useful work of a nautical
nature and not wasting his time. Men, women, boxes, rugs, dogs, flowers,
and baskets of fruits were flowing on board in a steady stream.

The usual drove of citizens had come to see the travellers off. There
were men on the passenger-list who were being seen off by fathers, by
mothers, by sisters, by cousins, and by aunts. In the steerage, there
was an elderly Jewish lady who was being seen off by exactly
thirty-seven of her late neighbours in Rivington Street. And two men in
the second cabin were being seen off by detectives, surely the crowning
compliment a great nation can bestow. The cavernous Customs sheds were
congested with friends and relatives, and Sam Marlowe, heading for the
gang-plank, was only able to make progress by employing all the muscle
and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and which during the
greater part of his life he had developed by athletic exercise. However,
after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his shoulder into
the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously lifting some stout
female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling to within a few
yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot through his right
arm, and he spun round with a cry.

It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New
York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite.

She was a red-haired girl, with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with
red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, and he
could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or may be blue, or possibly
grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in feminine
eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the specimens under
his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble about a point of
colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it there was a tiny
freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft and round. She was
just about the height which every girl ought to be. Her figure was trim,
her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses of which a man can say
no more than that they look pretty well all right.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and
for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and
garnished, with "Welcome" on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and
fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the
third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and
docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of
how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He
swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its
covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told himself,
he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which made it
all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course of
history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh, to
clasp this girl to him and....

But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit.
That, he felt, constituted an obstacle.

Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded
from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl's lower ribs, a
sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over the
confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and write,
of Bills who were instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris and give
him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys, magazine-boys,
American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking their wares on
every side.

"I hope he didn't hurt you much. You're the third person he's bitten
to-day." She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on the
tip of his black nose. "Not counting waiters at the hotel, of course,"
she added. And then she was swept from him in the crowd, and he was left
thinking of all the things he might have said--all those graceful,
witty, ingratiating things which just make a bit of difference on these
occasions.

He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of
pain, had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition!
Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl
who comes to see friends off and doesn't sail herself. And what memory
of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she
went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital.

Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through
the crowd of passengers, passengers' friends, stewards, junior officers,
and sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main
companion-way, through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles,
as far as the dining saloon; then turned down the narrow passage leading
to his state-room.

State-rooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on the
chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing rings
round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression
that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over
to do a bit of entertaining--possibly an informal dance or something.
When you go on board, you find that the place has shrunk to the
dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to
swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands
again. For one reason or another the necessity for swinging cats does
not arise, and you find yourself quite comfortable.

Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart
in the passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge, began
to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost wished
now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed in
order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be a
tight fit. Eustace's bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to take
up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort, and
would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if the girl with
the red hair was not a passenger on the boat, he was going to have need
of diverting society.

Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag, and emitted a
deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale,
intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He
looked like a man who would write vers libre, as indeed he did.

Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but, going
by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected something
cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on Eustace to be
the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the bag before him
could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of Russian novelists.

"The matter?" Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, nothing. Nothing
much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart's broken." He eyed with
considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head, a
harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who
might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage.

"Talking of girls," said Sam with enthusiasm, "I've just seen the only
one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like this. I
was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when suddenly...."

"Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl, and highly
intelligent. I read her all my poems, and she appreciated them
immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest
her. She admired my...."

"You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened?
I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged
to some other johnny?"

"Not at all! I asked her to be my wife and she consented. We both agreed
that a quiet wedding was what we wanted--she thought her father might
stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother would--so we
decided to get married without telling anybody. By now," said Eustace,
with a morose glance at the porthole, "I ought to have been on my
honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the licence and the parson's
fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding."

"Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the story.
I'm telling you. What happened was this: somehow--I can't make out
how--mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over. She stopped
the thing."

Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his
cousin's meek subservience to her revolted him.

"Stopped it? I suppose she said 'Now, Eustace, you mustn't!' and you
said 'Very well, mother!' and scratched the fixture?"

"She didn't say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes,
she might never have heard anything about the marriage."

Eustace groaned. "All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long
before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out
while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress, I couldn't find
a single damned pair of bags in the whole place. I looked everywhere.
Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing letters and
asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she had sent
them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in the
mornings--I don't as a rule--and they would be back at lunch-time. A fat
lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I told
her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and she
wanted to know what it was, and I tried to think of something, but it
sounded pretty feeble, and she said I had better telephone to the man
and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book and
told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn't meet him
because I hadn't any trousers! He was pretty peeved, judging from what
he said about my being on the wrong number. And mother, listening all
the time, and I knowing that she knew--something told me that she
knew--and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell you, it was
awful!"

"She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from
eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She wouldn't
see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her
saying that what had happened was all for the best, as she had been
thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a
mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had
thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like
Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed."

"Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a
man anything except being ridiculous."

"I think you're well out of it," said Sam, judicially. "She can't have
been much of a girl."

"I feel that now. But it doesn't alter the fact that my life is ruined.
I have become a woman-hater. It's an infernal nuisance, because
practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its
way to boost women, and now I'll have to start all over again and
approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother
behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn't a law
against them. 'What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was't
betrayed the Capitol....'"

"In Washington?" said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But
then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting
page.

"I was quoting from Thomas Otway's 'Orphan.' I wish I could write like
Otway. He knew what he was talking about. 'Who was't betrayed the
Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A woman. Who was the
cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old Troy in ashes?
Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!'"

"Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I
mean. But the girl I met on the dock...."

"Don't!" said Eustace Hignett. "If you have anything bitter and
derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if
you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed
girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to
the captain or the ship's cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that
I am a soul in torment. I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a
future. What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My
work? I haven't any. I think I shall take to drink."

"Talking of that," said Sam, "I suppose they open the bar directly we
pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?"

"Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and
feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move, I go to bed and stay
there. As a matter of fact, I think it would be wisest to go to bed now.
Don't let me keep you if you want to go on deck."

"It looks to me," said Sam, "as if I had been mistaken in thinking that
you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage."

"Ray of sunshine!" said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve pyjamas
out of the kit-bag. "I'm going to be a volcano!"

Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get
on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now, the
sheep would be separating from the goats; the passengers would be on
deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor in the
boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already
taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was
she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He
reached the top of the stairs, and passed out on to the crowded deck.
And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from
the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with
people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water.

Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is
excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always
among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a
blank window on which were inscribed the words, "Watch this space!" In
short, he was one of Nature's rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and
shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a
moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on--a view which
he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the rail.

There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one
visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time
to time, as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and adjust
this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer.

Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of the
girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away, leaning
out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like everybody else,
she was staring into the water.

As Sam looked at her, the thought crossed his mind that here was a
wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl.
What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety, dived
in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt, who
would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to shift
back to a position of greater safety.

At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been
jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been
crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took
Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man
hung, as it were, between sea and sky: then he shot down over the rail
to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his hat
was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a few
skilful touches of the finger.

In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room
chatting with Eustace about the latter's bruised soul, some rather
curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary, perhaps, but
curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to grip the
reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should march. It
should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps. If there is
one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested in the hero in
chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell you all about his
grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go back a space. We
must return to the moment when, having deposited her Pekinese dog in her
state-room, the girl with the red hair came out again on deck. This
happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett was beginning his
narrative.

The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a
rattle, as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck.
The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face
brightened, and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of an
elderly man with a red face made redder by exertion, who had just forced
his way to the edge of the dock and was peering up at the
passenger-lined rail.

The boat had now begun to move slowly out of its slip, backing into the
river. It was now that the man on the dock sighted the girl. She
gesticulated at him. He gesticulated at her. He produced a handkerchief,
swiftly tied up a bundle of currency bills in it, backed to give himself
room, and then, with all the strength of his arm, hurled the bills in
the direction of the deck. The handkerchief with its precious contents
shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell short by a good six feet,
and dropped into the water, where it unfolded like a lily, sending
twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, five-dollar bills, and an
assortment of ones floating out over the wavelets.

It was at this moment that Mr. Oscar Swenson, one of the thriftiest
souls who ever came out of Sweden, perceived that the chance of a
lifetime had arrived for adding substantially to his little savings. By
profession he was one of those men who eke out a precarious livelihood
by rowing dreamily about the water-front in skiffs. He was doing so now:
and, as he sat meditatively in his skiff, having done his best to give
the liner a good send off by paddling round her in circles, the pleading
face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. Swenson was not the
man to resist the appeal. He uttered a sharp bark of ecstasy, pressed
his bowler hat firmly upon his brow, and dived in. A moment later he
had risen to the surface, and was gathering up money with both hands.

He was still busy with this congenial task when a tremendous splash at
his side sent him under again: and, rising for a second time, he
observed with not a little chagrin that he had been joined by a young
man in a blue flannel suit with an invisible stripe.

"Svensk!" exclaimed Mr. Swenson, or whatever it is that natives of
Sweden exclaim in moments of justifiable annoyance. He resented the
advent of this newcomer. He had been getting along fine and had had the
situation well in hand. To him Sam Marlowe represented Competition, and
Mr. Swenson desired no competitors in his treasure-seeking enterprise.
He travels, thought Mr. Swenson, the fastest who travels alone.

Sam Marlowe had a touch of the philosopher in him. He had the ability to
adapt himself to circumstances. It had been no part of his plans to come
whizzing down off the rail into this singularly soup-like water which
tasted in equal parts of oil and dead rats; but, now that he was here he
was prepared to make the best of the situation. Swimming, it happened,
was one of the things he did best, and somewhere among his belongings at
home was a tarnished pewter cup which he had won at school in the
"Saving Life" competition. He knew exactly what to do. You get behind
the victim and grab him firmly under his arms, and then you start
swimming on your back. A moment later, the astonished Mr. Swenson who,
being practically amphibious, had not anticipated that anyone would
have the cool impertinence to try to save him from drowning, found
himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away from a ten-dollar
bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The spiritual agony
caused by this assault rendered him mercifully dumb; though, even had he
contrived to utter the rich Swedish oaths which occurred to him, his
remarks could scarcely have been heard, for the crowd on the dock was
cheering as one man. They had often paid good money to see far less
gripping sights in the movies. They roared applause. The liner,
meanwhile, continued to move stodgily out into mid-river.

The only drawback to these life-saving competitions at school,
considered from the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the
problems of afterlife, is that the object saved on such occasions is a
leather dummy, and of all things in this world a leather dummy is
perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It differs in many respects from
an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and constructed throughout
of steel and india-rubber, who is being lugged away from cash which he
has been regarding in the light of a legacy. Indeed, it would be hard to
find a respect in which it does not differ. So far from lying inert in
Sam's arms and allowing himself to be saved in a quiet and orderly
manner, Mr. Swenson betrayed all the symptoms of one who feels that he
has fallen among murderers. Mr. Swenson, much as he disliked
competition, was ready to put up with it, provided that it was fair
competition. This pulling your rival away from the loot so that you
could grab it yourself--thus shockingly had the man misinterpreted Sam's
motives--was another thing altogether, and his stout soul would have
none of it. He began immediately to struggle with all the violence at
his disposal. His large, hairy hands came out of the water and swung
hopefully in the direction where he assumed his assailant's face to be.

Sam was not unprepared for this display. His researches in the art of
life-saving had taught him that your drowning man frequently struggles
against his best interests. In which case, cruel to be kind, one simply
stunned the blighter. He decided to stun Mr. Swenson, though, if he had
known that gentleman more intimately and had been aware that he had the
reputation of possessing the thickest head on the water-front, he would
have realised the magnitude of the task. Friends of Mr. Swenson, in
convivial moments, had frequently endeavoured to stun him with bottles,
boots and bits of lead piping and had gone away depressed by failure.
Sam, ignorant of this, attempted to do the job with clenched fist, which
he brought down as smartly as possible on the crown of the other's
bowler hat.

It was the worst thing he could have done. Mr. Swenson thought highly of
his hat and this brutal attack upon it confirmed his gloomiest
apprehensions. Now thoroughly convinced that the only thing to do was to
sell his life dearly, he wrenched himself round, seized his assailant by
the neck, twined his arms about his middle, and accompanied him below
the surface.

By the time he had swallowed his first pint and was beginning his
second, Sam was reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that
this was the end. The thought irritated him unspeakably. This, he felt,
was just the silly, contrary way things always happened. Why should it
be he who was perishing like this? Why not Eustace Hignett? Now there
was a fellow whom this sort of thing would just have suited.
Broken-hearted Eustace Hignett would have looked on all this as a
merciful release.

He paused in his reflections to try to disentangle the more prominent of
Mr. Swenson's limbs from about him. By this time he was sure that he had
never met anyone he disliked so intensely as Mr. Swenson--not even his
Aunt Adeline. The man was a human octopus. Sam could count seven
distinct legs twined round him and at least as many arms. It seemed to
him that he was being done to death in his prime by a solid platoon of
Swedes. He put his whole soul into one last effort ... something seemed
to give ... he was free. Pausing only to try to kick Mr. Swenson in the
face, Sam shot to the surface. Something hard and sharp prodded him in
the head. Then something caught the collar of his coat; and, finally,
spouting like a whale, he found himself dragged upwards and over the
side of a boat.

The time which Sam had spent with Mr. Swenson below the surface had been
brief, but it had been long enough to enable the whole floating
population of the North River to converge on the scene in scows, skiffs,
launches, tugs, and other vessels. The fact that the water in that
vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of these
navigators, and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race came
the tug "Reuben S. Watson," the skipper of which, following a famous
precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It was to
this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women often have a vein
of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business side of a
situation; and it was the skipper's daughter who insisted that the
family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing dollar bills,
should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of extricating
the young man from a watery grave.

The skipper had grumbled a bit at first but had given way--he always
spoiled the girl--with the result that Sam found himself sitting on the
deck of the tug, engaged in the complicated process of restoring his
faculties to the normal. In a sort of dream he perceived Mr. Swenson
rise to the surface some feet away, adjust his bowler hat, and, after
one long look of dislike in his direction, swim off rapidly to intercept
a five which was floating under the stern of a near-by skiff.

Sam sat on the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public
fountain. At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that he
wanted to do something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an
appointment which he must keep; but he was unable to think what it was.
Meanwhile, he conducted tentative experiments with his breath. It was
so long since he had last breathed that he had lost the knack of it.

The skipper's daughter was standing beside him, looking down
commiseratingly. Of the rest of the family all he could see was the
broad blue seats of their trousers as they leaned hopefully over the
side in the quest for wealth.

"Yes, sir! You sure are wet! Gee! I never seen anyone so wet! I seen wet
guys but I never seen anyone so wet as you. Yessir, you're certainly
wet!"

The trousers did not even quiver. But this girl was a girl of decision.
There was some nautical implement resting in a rack convenient to her
hand. It was long, solid, and constructed of one of the harder forms of
wood. Deftly extracting this from its place, she smote her inattentive
parent on the only visible portion of him. He turned sharply, exhibiting
a red, bearded face.

"Pa, this gen'man wants to be took aboard the boat at quarantine. He'll
give you fifty berries."

The wrath died out of the skipper's face like the slow turning down of a
lamp. The fishing had been poor, and so far he had only managed to
secure a single two-dollar bill. In a crisis like the one which had so
suddenly arisen you cannot do yourself justice with a boat-hook.

Sam removed his clinging garments and hurried into a new suit. He was in
no mood for conversation and Eustace Hignett's frank curiosity jarred
upon him. Happily, at this point, a sudden shivering of the floor and a
creaking of woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel was under way
again, and his cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on his side with a
hollow moan. Sam finished buttoning his waistcoat and went out.

He was passing the inquiry bureau on the C-deck, striding along with
bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to
look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For
there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous
young man who looked like a parrot.

"Oh, Mr. Marlowe, you oughtn't to have done it! Really, you oughtn't!
You might have been drowned! But I never saw anything so wonderful. It
was like the stories of knights who used to jump into lions' dens after
gloves!"

"Yes?" said Sam a little vaguely. The resemblance had not struck him. It
seemed a silly hobby, and rough on the lions, too.

"It was the sort of thing Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad would have done!
But you shouldn't have bothered, really! It's all right, now."

"Yes. I'd quite forgotten that Mr. Mortimer was to be on board. He has
given me all the money I shall need. You see it was this way. I had to
sail on this boat in rather a hurry. Father's head clerk was to have
gone to the bank and got some money and met me on board and given it to
me, but the silly old man was late and when he got to the dock they had
just pulled in the gang-plank. So he tried to throw the money to me in
a handkerchief and it fell into the water. But you shouldn't have dived
in after it."

"Oh, well!" said Sam, straightening his tie, with a quiet, brave smile.
He had never expected to feel grateful to that obese bounder who had
shoved him off the rail, but now he would have liked to seek him out and
shake him by the hand.

"I was only too delighted at what looked like a chance of doing you a
service."

"It was the extraordinary quickness of it that was so wonderful. I do
admire presence of mind. You didn't hesitate for a second. You just shot
over the side as though propelled by some irresistible force!"

"It was nothing, nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of
keeping one's head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some
people have it, some haven't."